DILLER: Planned Parenthood's missing millions
New GAO report reveals disturbing financial discrepancies
By Rita Diller
6:31 p.m., Friday, June 18, 2010
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on federal tax money funneled into Planned Parenthood and similar organizations raises more questions than it answers about the nation's largest abortion chain.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America's (PPFA) audits show the organization spent just $657.1 million between 2002 and 2008 from federal government grants and programs, but the abortion behemoth's own annual reports show that it took in $2.3 billion from government grants and programs during the same time period.
That's not pocket change. Why the discrepancy?
The report (the first of its kind since 2002) was released in response to a request from 31 U.S. senators and representatives and in an atmosphere increasingly hostile to abortion. Not surprisingly. then, its findings are fueling an escalating outcry to defund Planned Parenthood.
Since 2009, at least five nationwide polls have confirmed that a majority of Americans consider themselves pro-life.
Someone, then, needs to explain to all those people why $2.3 billion in tax dollars have been doled out to an organization that admits to systematically having killed more than 1.8 million pre-born babies between 2002 and 2008 and then reports it only spent $657.1 million in federal dollars.
Has Planned Parenthood managed to tuck away megamillions of our tax dollars, seemingly unnoticed? Or is that much of its government funding coming from sources other than the federal government? Or is there a problem with the way Planned Parenthood is reporting its expenditure of our federal monies?
In just two weeks, Planned Parenthood will complete its 2009-10 fiscal year. Yet it still has not released its annual report for its 2008-09 fiscal year. In light of the discrepancy revealed in this GAO report, we must ask: What is Planned Parenthood trying to keep secret?
It's time for Planned Parenthood to come clean - if such a thing is possible.
Yes, Planned Parenthood has other sources of government funding - state and local - but historical data indicate it is simply not believable that such a large amount of its funding is from local and state sources.
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